For reasons that are best known to some unknown God, while in the process of reloading a laptop from scratch, I decided to install the latest available bios from the manufacturer.

(cue Clarkson.."how hard can i be?")

Now i'm looking at a laptop that won't boot, won't accept the USB stick with a replacement bios on it (created using WINCRIS), nor accept a USB-floppy with same.

As the laptop in question is an Acer, (and yes, i've tried their site, and got nowhere) I don't feel too bad about killing it. However, as it belongs to one of the canteen staff, I do feel about it and may never be able to eat food from here again......

So........just how bad is it? Is my soup of the day likely to come with "extras?"

HAve you pulled all power, including battery and leave for two mins

Sometimes it kick starts these type of things

How far does it get? Does it POST at all?

you will need an eprom programmer,i dont have one

How far does it get? Does it POST at all?

Nope, not even that far.

Already pulled the battery before hand. Tried the whole holding the power button for 30s while unplugged - something tells me that won't work as the power button has been fiddled with and you need to press one of the touch controls to start it......the last computer repair shop that had it to replace the screen, wiped the hard drive and installed windows XP..... and i thought i was a bit of a cowboy.....

eprom programmer....sounds like hardwork and way beyond my level of skill.

Take it you've seen and tried this:

http://www.qrpcw.com/2009/01/acer-aspire-one-bios-recovery.html

See if you can pick up a knackered machine from emay and swap the bios chip over or the whole motherboard. Assuming the bios chip is removable, sometimes it is.

Edited 21 October, 201114 yr by trundlenut

Hammer

When I saw the IT bod in work do similar, he simply used an earlier BIOS file got it working, then updated again.

When I saw the IT bod in work do similar, he simply used an earlier BIOS file got it working, then updated again.

If the machine won't even POST that is going to be a challenge though....

HAve you pulled all power, including battery and leave for two mins

Sometimes it kick starts these type of things

Have you been able to find if it has a CMOS battery you can pull out.

That won't deal with a borked flash unfortunately.

If the manufacturers own flah tools aren't working then it's going to be pretty difficult to fix. Doubly on a laptop.

If the bios chip isnt hard wired to the mobo it can be replaced/flashed, sadly, with laptops they often are hard wired, but it is worth having a look.

I feel for you, installing some software for my Samsung phone bricked my netbook last week. Luckily it would still post, so I managed to get get an emergency usb boot of WinPE to gain access, and save off my importnt files before trying a repair install of windows.

Edited 24 October, 201114 yr by GentleGiant